EDUCATION

EDUCATION; Urban School District For Indians Is Urged

AP

Published: January 11, 1989

ST. PAUL, Jan. 10—
The Minnesota Legislature should start the nation's first urban school district run by American Indians to focus on the special educational needs of native American children, a group of educators has recommended.

The 15-member Indian School Council, created by the Legislature last February, recently submitted a preliminary report recommending that the special district open a school in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area by the fall of 1990.

Minnesota's Indian children, who have had some of the public school system's lowest test scores and highest dropout rates, would not be required to attend the school. But the council said it believed local Indians would overwhelmingly support such a school, which they expect would be three-quarters Indian.

Supporters say they hope an Indian-run school that puts the needs of Indians first will instill self-confidence and pride in pupils about their heritage and reduce the stream of dropouts from public schools.

The supporters also say an Indian-controlled school would encourage support from Indian parents, who have viewed public school education as a tool of white society to separate them from their Indian identity. Goal Is Explained

''The idea is to make what is public about public education closer to the constituents' students,'' said David Beaulieu, director of Indian education for the State Department of Education, who is also a member of the In dian School Council. ''You can change the child to fit the school, or you can change the school to fit the child.''

''It's real clear that public education is not working well for a lot of American Indians,'' he said. ''So I'm in favor of anything that I can be convinced will increase student achievement.''

The Chippewa tribe is predominant in Minnesota, but there are Sioux and Dakotas, and residents from tribes based in other areas. Minneapolis has the metropolitan area's largest concentration of Indian pupils, slightly fewer than 3,000, or about 7.5 percent of 39,500. St. Paul has about 900 Indian pupils, or 3 percent of 33,000, The Legislature opened the door for an urban Indian-run school district when it created the Indian School Council in the last session.

But the council's report arrives at a time when metropolitan school districts are wrestling with the question of how to desegregate, and the idea of a predominantly Indian school is contrary to that goal.

Indian-run reservation schools are commonplace, but an Indian-run public school in an urban setting would be extraordinary and involve meshing the tenets of mainstream education with traditional Indian ideas, like the study of tribal law and culture.

Such a school would place Indian concerns first because the majority of pupils would be Indians, said Don Allery, chairman of the Indian School Council, who is also tribal historian for the Red Lake Indian Reservation.

''Who controls the system is who dictates the priorities,'' Mr. Allery said last week.

But the Indian School Council was not unanimous in its recommendation of the school proposal.

Eleanor Weber, a St. Paul School Board member who sat on the council as a representative of her board, says the Legislature should consider alternatives, like creating a magnet school that would draw Indian pupils in an existing school district, recruiting more Indian teachers, and increasing funds for existing Indian education programs.

''The viewpoint I have heard is that there is something inherently beneficial about the education of Indians by Indians,'' she said. ''Now, I have yet to see the evidence.''

The report's authors say they envision a metropolitan school that would include grades from kindergarten to 12. No site or even preferred city was recommended in the report.